Thaxteb shaw



(No Model.)

.T. SHAW.

v APPARATUS FOR'PREBARI'N'G HIDES. No. 294,410. r Patented Mar. 4.-1884..

UNITED STATES,

PATENT OFFICE.

' THAXTER SHAW, OF BANGOR, MAINE, ASSIGNQR OF ONE-HALF TO HINCKLEY 8t .EGERY IRON COMPANY, OF SAME PLACE.

APPARATUS FOR PREPARING HIDES.

SPECIFICATION forming part Of Letters Patent N0. 294,410, dated March 4, 1884.

I Application filed February 23, 1883. (No model) ,Zo aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, THAXTER SHAW, of Bangor, in the county of Penobscot and State of Maine, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Apparatus for Preparing Hides; and I do hereby declare that the fol- *my machine. I l

My invention consists of an improved apparatus for simultaneously expressing the water and liquor from hides after the tanning and drenching has been completed, thereby facilitating the subsequent drying and equalizing the thickness of the hide. I

My device is intended as an improvement upon that shown in Patent No, 49,402, August 15, 1865, in which both pressure-rollers have soft surfaces, which fail to do efficient work from their yielding nature; and also upon the devices shown in Patent No. 250,241, November 29, 1881, in which both rollers have hard surfaces, this latter, although doing excellent work on small or smooth hides, tending to cut and injure larger hides in cases Where a fold or wrinkle runs between the rolls. 7

My machine combines the hard and soft .rolls, and will be readily understood by reference to the annexed drawings, in which at a is shown a suitable frame supporting rollers b c, journaled one above the other, in journalboxes d (I, said boxes being capable of aslight vertical movement, rendering the rollers. selfadjustable to hides of difierent or varying thickness. This adjustment and'the amount of pressure is regulated by means of screws 6, acting upon springs f, bearing on the journalboxes. So far, my device varies but little'from that of the above-named patents. Y

My improvement consists in covering one of the rolls b or c with rubber or some equiv.- alent material to a thickness of some inch and a half or so, leaving the surface of the other both or all running at equal speed.

I do not claim, broadly, in a machine for preparing hides, rolls one above the other, one of which has a flexible or yielding surface and the other with a rigid surface, as I am aware that such machines have been used for pebbling or embossing leather, the flexible surface of the under roll alloyving a yielding bed for the engraved surface of the upper roll. My machine differs from this both in construction and design. The surface of the rigid roll is both hard and smooth, and the yielding-surface roll is employed not, as in the pebbling-machines, to transfer permanently marks or indentations to the surface of the leather, but expressly to guard against such a result. The purpose of my device is therefore precisely the reverse of the references cited, and I attain the result by a diflerent construction of roll.

What I claim as my inve'ntion-is In a machine substantially of the class described for expressing the water from and equalizing the thickness of tanned and drenched hides, the pressure-rolls b 0, one having a hard or unyielding surface, smooth upon its surface, and the other an elastic covering, as herein set forth.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing I have hereunto set my hand this 12th day of February, 1883.

THAXTER SHAW.

Witnesses:

FRANK W. LINcoLN, WM. FRANKLIN SEAVEY. 

